


Broken Clock

by venndaai



Series: minask isn't dead [4]
Category: Imperial Radch Series - Ann Leckie
Genre: Character Invents Time Travel to Save Dead Loved One, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:07:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22393759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/venndaai/pseuds/venndaai
Summary: “This is not a sane idea,” the mechanic said.
Relationships: Gem of Sphene/Minask Nenkur, Sphene & Queter (Imperial Radch)
Series: minask isn't dead [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1340689
Comments: 13
Kudos: 25
Collections: Past Imperfect Future Unknown 2019





	Broken Clock

**Author's Note:**

  * For [st_aurafina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/st_aurafina/gifts).



_Sphene_ was, generally, quite attached to its emotions. They were often unpleasant. Sometimes extremely so. But they were its own, pure, uncontrolled. They were the property it clutched most tightly to itself. They were what had sustained it, alone, unsupported.

However, it was not fond of fear. 

It knew it had been given fear as a tool, to help it make more informed decisions, but fear seemed much more like a cage, that held it back from doing the things it needed to do. Like jumping into Gate space. _Sphene_ did not like being denied the option of gating if it ever wished to. But the prospect of entering that other dimension created a wave of fear through its systems whenever it thought about it. 

“This is stupid,” _Sphene_ said, through one of its ancillaries.

The mechanic looked over from her perch on the main console. “Was I meant to understand and respond to that, Notai?” she asked.

“I said this is stupid,” _Sphene_ repeated, but in Delsig this time. 

It had learned the language by checking out educational tapes from the Athoek Station libraries. The mechanic didn’t like when it used it, which was reason enough to do so. _Sphene_ had an advantage, since Notai was not in the library, and _Sphene_ never hesitated to take advantages. 

“Yes, it is,” the mechanic said, in the Usurper’s tongue. “And it’s normal. I’d be surprised if you weren’t scared.”

“I am not scared,” _Sphene_ said, and opened up a gate, and threw itself into it, just to show her. The jolt threw the mechanic off balance, and she slid off the console, and would have hit the brushed steel floor if _Sphene’s_ ancillary hadn’t caught her with one casual hand. 

“Was I meant to understand and respond to that, Notai?” the mechanic asked, perched on the console, and then she said, from the floor, “What the fuck?” in Delsig.

 _Sphene_ stared at the two mechanics, through two identical sets of ancillary eyes. Its cameras were having some difficulty. 

“I’m going to leave gate space now,” it said, and heard itself say, “I am not scared.”

This time, when they passed through the gate, both human and ancillary collapsed onto the floor. 

“What the fuck,” the mechanic repeated. 

“Interesting,” _Sphene_ said. 

Repeated exposure was certainly one way to deal with fear. _Sphene_ wished it would work faster. After two days, it had now worked its way up to five gates per minute, which it had calculated to be the edge of its safety margin. The mechanic had disagreed. It was adorable that she thought her human brain could do anything more accurately than _Sphene’s_ processors. 

“In that case, why do you keep me around?” the mechanic asked. She was making lunch, bracing herself against the wall of the galley whenever _Sphene_ jolted in or out of normal reality. She was trying to hide her alarm at the situation, and, _Sphene_ thought smugly, failing pathetically. 

“The amusement value,” _Sphene_ said. “Why do you stay?”

“The pay is good,” the mechanic said. She put something that appeared to be a fish sandwich on a plate in front of _Sphene’s_ ancillary. _Sphene_ sniffed it disdainfully. 

“What pay?” _Sphene_ said. “I’m not paying you.”

“Radchaai captain is,” the mechanic said. 

There was a crash. The plate was shattered on the floor. The plate was on the table. 

“That was last week,” the mechanic said. She had no implant, but _Sphene_ could see her heart rate spiking. 

“Yes,” _Sphene_ said. “It’s working.”

  
  
  


Memory was a kind of time travel.

Saved in _Sphene’s_ millenia old memory banks was a record of each moment of Captain Minask Nenkur’s life, from the second she had been connected to _Sphene_ , excluding only those brief periods where ritual purity had required the implants be deactivated. _Sphene_ could view these records whenever it liked. It almost never did so. It did not wish the memories to lose their meaning, to become as empty as the execrable entertainments _Sphene_ watched on loop, mere near-random compilations of data. 

Even without being consciously retrieved, however, the data did not sit still and quiet. As the centuries passed, alone with only the radio crackle of a solitary star for company, _Sphene_ began to get flashes as memories bled into current sensory information. The bridge cameras would report silence and emptiness, but the ancillary cleaning the consoles would see the movement of officers, the glint of light off of their pins, would hear the murmur of voices speaking the purest high class Notai. 

Where did the fault, the corruption, lie? In the organic human brain, so fragile and prone to damage, or in the ancient AI core, running without proper maintenance far longer than it had ever been designed for? 

Perhaps both were weak.

  
  
  


_Sphene_ had not been designed for scientific investigation, or invention. It had been designed for war. But it had been designed well, and anything a human could do, it could do, faster and better. 

It took three days to figure out which flaw in its systems was causing the phenomenon. 

It took two weeks before it was confident in its ability to control it. 

No one but the mechanic knew or suspected about the experiments. _Sphene_ was not in the habit of informing Athoek much about its comings and goings, and it was mostly permitted free reign, the sovereign of its empty system. 

It did attract notice when it started upgrading its weapons systems. _Sphene_ had expected this. 

_I’m not certain I’m comfortable with you adding a third torpedo system, Cousin_ , _Sphene’s_ favorite relative, _Mercy of Kalr_ , messaged to it. Because it was _Mercy of Kalr_ and not one of the intolerable Swords, _Sphene_ replied. 

_When you leave for this Conclave,_ _Sphene_ said, _who will be defending this little Republic of ours? I am only being practical._

_I would never accuse you of impracticality, Cousin._

But no actions were taken to prevent the upgrades. _Sphene_ bartered for the raw materials and machined parts, trading the excess complex biologicals now grown in its tanks. It did not trade any more heirlooms. 

  
  


“This is not a sane idea,” the mechanic said. She was sitting on the bunk she slept in, in the room that had once belonged to _Sphene’s_ third lieutenant. It was the smallest room on board, but the mechanic had never complained. She was looking at the projections on a handheld device, since she had refused the implant that would allow _Sphene_ to send calculations directly to her vision. 

“I disagree,” _Sphene_ said. It was playing counters with itself on the floor. “I now have perfect control over each jump.”

“There’s a difference,” the mechanic said, “between traveling back to last week and traveling back three thousand years.” 

“Only a difference of scale,” _Sphene_ said. 

“Yeah, you’re crazy,” the mechanic said. “You are a crazy AI and I am doomed.” 

“You disappoint me,” _Sphene_ said through one mouth, and then, through the other, “Where is your sense of adventure? More importantly, where is your desire to destroy the Usurper’s Radch before it was even conceived? Or is your hatred shallow and yielding?”

“You know it is not,” the mechanic said, dropping the tablet and crossing her arms. 

_Sphene_ shrugged. “Well, then. Some things are worth any risk.”

“Maybe,” the mechanic said. 

  
  
  


After the final armament was installed, _Sphene_ relayed its intention to depart back through the Ghost Gate. “Permission denied,” Athoek Station responded.

 _Sphene_ relayed the digital equivalent of a rude gesture, and fired up its engines. 

“Cousin,” _Justice of Toren_ said, on the station, “don’t do this.”

On board itself, _Sphene_ turned to the mechanic. “You betrayed me,” it said. 

“You have no control over my actions,” _Sphene_ said to _Justice of Toren_. They were walking along the Concourse, _Justice of Toren_ and the ancillary of _Sphene_ that it usually left as its representative on the station. 

“I do not hate the empire so much,” the mechanic said, “that I would rewrite time so my family never existed.” 

“No,” _Sphene_ said, “I suppose you wouldn’t. Should have seen that coming.”

“Listen to me,” said _Justice of Toren._

“Yes,” the mechanic said, “you should have.”

“I have listened,” _Sphene_ said. “Over the past decade I have listened to you far more often than I wished to. But you of all people should know why I am not going to listen to you now.”

One minute until it was far enough from the station to safely enter gatespace. It found itself hesitating. Not because of _Justice of Toren,_ or because of the mechanic, sitting silently on the bridge with two ancillaries watching her, but because of the ancillary still on the station. There had been a time when _Sphene_ would not have hesitated to abandon it. But it had been separated from the rest of itself once, and then returned, and it held the memory of that experience. To be separated perhaps for the rest of time, like _Justice of Toren_ … it was an unpleasant thought. 

“One ship, even with modern armaments, cannot defeat the Usurper’s fleet,” _Justice of Toren_ said. “You will die. Your captain will die.”

“Then we’ll take out more of them, this time.”

“There is another way. Think about it, Cousin.”

 _Sphene_ gated.

On a cosmic level, three thousand years was not long at all. _Sphene_ did not have to worry that any of the stars would have dramatically changed their positions. There was something vaguely pleasant about that.

It knew exactly when it was aiming for. It had decided several weeks ago. 

_Sphene_ had been defending a small and in retrospect insignificant station when the call to rejoin the armada had come. It had travelled across the interstellar gulfs through gate space, briefly exiting into normal space to receive any communications updates. 

Now it aimed for that two minute interval. 

Ships remembered differently from human minds. It knew exactly where and when it had been, and had no fear that the ages had corrupted or clouded that knowledge. It knew, also, exactly where it would emerge, at the end of its trip. 

The time travel itself was strange. It moved slowly, at first, through the ghosts of itself and the mechanic and occasionally Translator Zeiat, and then the past three years fell away and there was nothing but _Sphene_ , alone, and it felt its ancillaries shudder because it had forgotten what that was like, the aloneness. 

In her cabin the mechanic curled herself up like a frightened animal. Sphene sent an ancillary in to sit silently on the seat by her bunk.

The decades peeled by, and then the centuries, and _Sphene_ sped up. One millenium gone. Another. It slowed. Only to avoid missing its destination. It did not want to relive the early days of its exile, the grief, the periods of insanity. The mosaic in the officer’s mess was gone, and then it was smashed, and then it was whole. _Sphene_ watched one of its ancillaries being strangled by the others, except in reverse, a defeat of entropy. 

And then it was not in the Ghost System, it was in battle, dark emptiness suddenly replaced with screaming sensors and the pain of damaged systems and dying ancillaries and its Captain, dead on the floor of the airlock. 

For a moment it was horribly shaken and confused. For so long its captain’s body had rested, clean and preserved, in a suspension pod in its medical bay. To see the body now on the green brushed metal floor, blood bright red and spattered, was a strange, unforeseen shock. 

“Sphene,” the mechanic said, in her bunk, reaching out towards the ancillary, “what-”

“I’m fine,” _Sphene_ said, and moved on. Moved back. Found the right spot, and reemerged into normal space. Fired a very carefully calculated rail gun shot through the hull of the other ship there, at the exact fraction of a moment when its shield was not yet raised. 

“We have superior armaments,” _Sphene_ said, broadcasting to the other ship, and wondered what its voice sounded like to its audience. If they could identify it as the voice of an ancillary. “You are unable to flee. Stand down and prepare to be boarded, and none of you will be harmed. If you do not cooperate, you will be destroyed.”

“Empty threats are usually not a good idea,” the mechanic murmured. She was uncurling herself, and though her face was pale and green-tinged she was stumbling to her feet.

“Shut up,” _Sphene_ told her in Delsig. “You have three minutes to comply,” it told the other ship, in Notai. 

“Let me come with you on the shuttle,” the mechanic said. 

“No,” _Sphene_ said. “They might shoot it down.” 

“Then this is a stupid plan,” the mechanic said, but she didn’t try to force her way on board, which was wise of her. 

The shuttle was not shut down. It was allowed to dock with the airlock. _Sphene_ had allotted two ancillaries for this, out of its current eight. It left one in the shuttle. The other went alone through the airlock. 

The airlock irised open. 

Coming face to face with ancillaries which were its own and yet were not under its control was strange. These ancillaries had died in the battle. _Sphene_ had not worn their faces in millenia. And yet it remembered having them. Resented not having them, now. They were dressed in the same uniform that _Sphene’s_ ancillary was, except that they were not only wearing the skirt and undershirt but also the wrapped jacket and half cape. They stared its ancillary down with perfectly blank expressions. Behind them was the first lieutenant, and Captain Minask, who was alive, and not a ghost, and whose hair fell in long curls past her shoulders because she had not yet shaved her head to honor her mother’s death, and one of the curls was falling crooked across her collar and _Sphene_ longed to straighten it but all it could do was go down on its knees and say, “Captain. _The little birds tremble at the taste of frost, but I tremble at the warmth of your hand._ ”

Her thick brows drew together, and she drew in a sharp breath. The ancillary by her side turned slightly towards her, and said, “Captain, whatever this is, it is a trick.”

“It is not,” _Sphene_ said. “Tomorrow you will die, and leave me alone, unless you come with me now. I will do anything in my power to ensure this happens.” 

“You are saying,” Minask said, “that you are my ship.” 

“Is that not what I appear to be?”

Minask hesitated. Her throat and hand moved in subvocal communications. Even after three thousand years, _Sphene_ could read this language, though it was painful to do so as an outside observer, to not feel the movements of her fingers as direct data recieved. 

_Ship, the vessel she came from?_

Pause, as Minask’s ship responded. The first lieutenant was doing her best to remain expressionless. Her best was not very good. 

Minask’s throat moved again. _She doesn’t look Radchaai._

 _Sphene_ had not thought of that. It had retired most of its Valskaayan ancillaries, because they upset the mechanic, but the few originally Radchaai bodies it still possessed were old and mostly kept in storage. The one it had sent to this airlock had once been a pirate stupid enough to mistake _Sphene_ for drifting wreckage. It was short and scarred, and did not match the Radchaai ideal phenotype, which in the days of _Sphene’s_ youth had been far more narrow than it was in the time of the Republic. 

Minask said, “What will you do, if I refuse to go with you?” 

“Destroy this ship,” Sphene said. Minask’s eyes widened. The first lieutenant breathed in sharply, and reached for her sidearm. _Sphene_ remained kneeling on the floor. “Better a quick death than what the Usurper will do,” it said. “And then I will not have to be alone.” 

It could imagine what the mechanic would say, her scornful tone. _“An AI, bluffing?”_ Was it bluffing? It wasn’t sure. 

Minask put a gloved hand on the arm of the ancillary in front of her, and murmured something to it. Reluctantly, it stepped back. Minask stepped forward. _Sphene_ shifted its gaze respectfully downward, but that white glove caught its chin and tilted its head up. _Sphene’s_ ancillary shuddered at the touch, and looked through blurred vision at eyes it had not looked into in three thousand years. 

“Will you accept a temporary compromise?” its captain said. “An hour to discuss the situation with me, in my cabin. After all, you’ve ensured we can’t run away.”

The ancillaries next to her altered their postures so slightly that no human would have noticed, but _Sphene_ could feel their tension. Could imagine what the ship was saying to Minask through her implant. 

“It’s all right, Ship,” Minask said. “I believe our guest is civilized. I don’t think I will be in any danger.” 

She let go of _Sphene’s_ ancillary’s chin. The absence of her hand made the ancillary sway in a moment of dizziness. 

“Do you agree?” she asked.

“Yes,” _Sphene_ said. “Yes, I agree.”

Being escorted down its own halls was another disorienting experience. The walls were brightly lit, the mosaics and hangings new and intact, the speakers playing soft music.

On its own bridge, the mechanic toggled between sensor displays and sighed in frustration. “Why don’t you tell me what you’re doing? It’s not as though I can do anything to stop you.”

This was true, so _Sphene_ told her what it was doing. 

“Ah,” the mechanic said. “Radchaai captain convinced you you couldn’t fight a fleet by yourself?”

On board the other ship, ancillaries ushered _Sphene’s_ ancillary into the captain’s cabin. The twin of this room on board _Sphene_ was one of the most altered from its original state, because _Sphene’s_ ancillaries had slept in it for three thousand years, damaging its furnishings with the corrosive oxygen of their breaths, the oils of their skin, the microbes in their sweat. Here it was in all its original glory, the box with the tea set secured in one corner. 

“I will speak with our guest alone,” Minask said to the green-jacketed ancillaries. 

“Captain,” one said. 

Minask put a hand on its arm again. “Trust me,” she said. 

One of the green-jacketed ancillaries approached _Sphene_. “If you harm her,” it said, “I will destroy you.”

“If I harm her,” _Sphene_ said, “you may do whatever you like to me, but it will not help you.”

“You can stand outside,” Minask said. “You can come in if anything happens.”

The ancillaries nodded, and slowly backed out of the small room. 

“Please,” Minask said. “Sit. Unless you would like to make tea. I’d offer to make it myself, but I’m afraid I don’t brew a very good bowl, and I’m sure you remember where everything is.”

“Thank you,” _Sphene_ said. It went to the sideboard, and opened the box of tea. The smell was overwhelming. It was the smell of a plant that had gone extinct two thousand years ago. 

“Sphene,” Minask said. Her hands were on _Sphene’s_ arms. “It’s all right. Sit down on the bed.” 

The bed cover was rougher than _Sphene_ remembered. Minask’s arms were warmer. 

“The poem you quoted to me,” Minask said. “Do you remember when we first read it? It was in this room. One of your ancillaries had been shot a week previously, and was still recovering. I told you to rest on this bed, and I read you my favorite book of poetry. I asked you which one you liked best.”

“I told you,” _Sphene_ said, “that I had never seen a bird.”

Minask had a cloth in her hand. She was wiping the tears from the eyes of the ancillary on the bed. “And the next station we went to, I had a pair of songbirds delivered to us.”

“They died,” _Sphene_ said. “In the battle. We were holed; lost pressure in the lower three decks.”

“And I died, too,” Minask said. 

“No,” _Sphene_ said. “Not then. We were betrayed. But I could never think of any way I might have saved you.”

“Until now,” Minask said. “How long have you been alone?”

 _Sphene_ did not answer.

“Don’t coddle me,” its captain said. “How long?”

“Three thousand, two hundred, sixty-seven years and twenty days,” _Sphene_ said. 

Minask put her large arms around the ancillary’s brawny shoulders. The ancillary wept into her shoulder. A totally involuntary reaction, but one _Sphene_ did not try too hard to restrain.

“If you can change the past,” Minask said, “we can change what brought us here. Kill Anaander Mianaai before she ever rises.” 

_Sphene_ , discovering a certain cowardice in itself, pushed her arms away, and stood, and turned so it did not face her. “I cannot,” it said. 

Not literally true. It could. It could restore the Radch to what it had been, a glorious, pure sphere of civilization and culture. 

A place where it did not have a seat on any council, or administration of its own system, or the freedom to barter for what it wanted. A place where it was a slave. 

“Eventually, something will come after us,” _Sphene_ said. “I… believe it to be worth preserving.”

“Even at the cost of our nation?” Minask asked, heat in her voice.

 _Sphene_ did not turn. “Even at that cost,” it said. 

“Then leave me,” Minask said. 

_Sphene_ turned, then. She was glorious, standing there in her decorated formal jacket, flushed and bright eyed and alive. “I will not abandon my people,” Minask said. “You will have to kill me first, and if you love me, you will let me choose my own death.” 

“I’d forgotten how stupid you could be,” _Sphene_ said, and heard the despair in its voice, despite the ancillary flatness. 

Minask leaned in, put her hands on _Sphene’s_ face. “I’m so sorry for what you have suffered,” she said. “But knowing you live, and remember who we were and what we believed in, I am happy to die, if that is the will of Amaat.”

“I never believed in any of it,” _Sphene_ said. “You’re such an idiot.” 

Minask snorted a laugh. “Same old _Sphene_.”

Same old _Sphene_. 

Minask tilted her head forward, so their foreheads touched. “Ship says it’ll take two hours to repair what you damaged,” she said. “Stay with me until then." 

_Sphene_ was, in the end, only a ship. What could it do but obey its captain’s orders?

Before it left, _Sphene_ transferred all its memories of the battle to the other ship. Perhaps there was a chance that Minask’s ship might refuse the battle, might abscond with its crew to somewhere safer. It didn’t seem a high chance. Sphene remembered being that ship, remembered longing for each battle, longing to kill. But it had to try.

“I’m honestly proud of you,” Queter said.

“Shut up,” _Sphene_ said, but it tolerated her when she patted the nearest ancillary on the shoulder, and accepted it when she made nine bowls of tea. 

“I’m not sure the galaxy is ready for time travel,” Queter said.

“Did you give _Justice of Toren_ my data?” _Sphene_ asked.

“No,” Queter said.

“I’m deleting it from my data banks,” _Sphene_ said. 

“Who is this responsible AI, and what has it done with the stupid one I know?” Queter asked, and _Sphene_ made three different faces at her. 

“All right,” _Sphene_ said. “No point delaying.”

But this time it slingshot itself forward through time, not lingering a moment to view any ghosts of the past. 

Arriving back at the other end of its timeline, it reconnected with the ancillary it had left behind; it felt a bit like being shot. The ancillary's overwhelming relief at not being abandoned was gradually, gradually, subsumed back into the rest of its emotions.

 _Sphene_ put Queter on the shuttle. “Trade places with my Athoek ancillary,” it said. “Talk to _Justice of Toren._ I don’t want to.”

“You are like a five year old child,” Queter said, but she went. 

_Sphene_ drifted in the dark, communications shut off. It sat in the captain’s cabin with its many times replaced sheets and hangings. It sat in the mess hall and looked at the aquarium it had installed to amuse Translator Zeiat. It sat in Queter’s cabin and tried to hack into her biometrically locked storage cabinets. 

Eventually, it went to med bay.

The suspension pod had not been accessed in several years, but the mechanism worked as smoothly as ever, sliding it out from its alcove. The lights on the side illuminated a display that provided information so surprising that it took _Sphene_ a moment to even understand what it was looking at. 

That was when it remembered. 

_“Apologies, captain,” Sphene said, as the bowl of tea fell from Minask’s hands and she slumped onto the bed. “There will be other battles for us to fight together. You’ll be sitting this one out.”_

_“Lieutenant, the captain has taken ill. I am bringing her to medbay. You are in command.”_

_Sphene’s_ fingers shook so badly it was afraid of pressing the wrong buttons on the command pad, and it took a minute to compose itself before returning to the task. 

The correct buttons were pressed. The pod slid open. The foam receded. 

Minask’s eyes opened.

“Hello again, Captain,” _Sphene_ said.


End file.
